Preparing Today for Tomorrow’s Sale ... and the Subsequent Liquidity Event

Brian is the Managing Director of Interchange Capital Partners. In this role he oversees strategic initiatives of the company with a specific focus on the Family Business and Entrepreneur client segment. His focus is on helping owners think through, build and execute on a value acceleration and transition strategy for the shareholders. He believes that at its core exit planning combines the plan, concept, effort and process into a clear, simple strategy to build a business that is transferable through strong human, structural, customer, and social capital. The future of each owner, their family, and their business are addressed by exit planning through creating value today.

Brian is also the President of the Pittsburgh Exit Planning Chapter, which he helped found in 2019. The chapters mission is to give business owners a forum to get educated on true exit planning – how to build a valuable and transferable business through a proven process. He graduated from Penn State with a Bachelors in Psychology and a minor in Business. He is a Certified Exit Planning Advisor and a CFP.

Kristy Britsch serves as senior counsel to the Corporate and Securities Practice Group. She has more than a decade of experience advising closely held businesses on incorporating employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) into their business succession planning. Kristy represents businesses of all sizes, as well as selling shareholders and ESOP fiduciaries, in transactions involving employer securities.

Her transaction experience includes representing companies, selling shareholders and ESOP fiduciaries in the sale of employer securities to the ESOP, representing existing ESOP companies and ESOP fiduciaries in sales of ESOP companies to third-party buyers and representing existing ESOP companies and ESOP fiduciaries in the acquisition of other companies. Kristy enjoys helping her clients navigate the complex legal aspects of an ESOP stock purchase transaction and the issues that arise during the life cycle of the ESOP post-transaction, which includes counsel on ERISA fiduciary matters, ESOP plan compliance matters, and ESOP sustainability considerations.

In addition to working on ESOP transactions, Kristy’s practice focuses on general employee benefit and executive compensation matters, including plan design, implementation, and compliance for various types of qualified and non-qualified plans (this includes advising businesses on Code Section 409A matters).

Jonathan founded Defiant Capital Group and is the Chief Investment Officer. He has over a decade of financial markets experience and leads the firm's investment process across all asset classes, including portfolio construction, manager due diligence, and deployment of client capital. He previously served as the Director of Portfolio Strategy & Research for a $900mn multi-family office, and prior worked in Investment Banking in New York City at Goldman Sachs and Jefferies.

Ashleigh Walters is the President of Onex, an employee-owned business operating for over 55 years in Erie, PA. Onex designs, services, and manufactures high-temperature industrial furnaces. When Ashleigh assumed the General Manager role in 2013, the company had lost sight of its mission and family-centric core values. Today, Onex’s mission is to Make Things Better: Empowered Employees, Happy Clients, Thriving Communities. Ashleigh holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Auburn University. Ashleigh is the author of Leading with Grit and Grace: A Journey of Organizational Culture Change. Ashleigh regularly shares her story with other leaders, encouraging them to “make things better” by improving processes and creating a people-centric organizational culture.